Akufo-Addo incurred more debt than any other president: Sammy Gyamfi

Politics of Thursday, October 29, 2020

Source: Peace FM

2020-10-29

National Democratic Congress (NDC) National Communications Officer Sammy Gyamfi has noted that at that time the New Patriotic Party (NPP) did not deliver on its promises to reduce government borrowing and improve the debt sustainability situation.

He said at a press conference in Accra on Wednesday October 28 that at the time the PNP made this promise in 2016, our public debt was GHS 120 billion and our debt-to-GDP ratio was 55, 6%.

But what do we see today? Our public debt, which was GHS 120 billion as of December 2016, has skyrocketed to GHS 258.8 billion (that is, as of June 2020). Furthermore, our debt / GDP ratio, which stood at 55.6% as of December 2016, has increased to 68.3% and the IMF projects that it will reach 76.7% in December of this year, ”he said.

He added: “What this means is that President Akufo-Addo has added more debt, that is, a whopping 138 billion GHS and still counting, to Ghana’s public debt in just three (3) years and much more than any government has done in the history of this country, and much more than all successive governments since independence, have cumulatively added to the country’s public debt. In fact, based on our current total public debt of GHS 258.8 billion (i.e. as of June 2020), all Ghanaians in Ghana are today in debt to the tune of approximately GHS 10,000.

It has resulted in a situation where more than 90% of our national income is spent on debt service. According to the 2020 mid-year budget review statement, national revenues from January 2020 to June 2020 stood at 21,682,896,236 GHS. Of this amount, 19,599,639,701 GHS, representing 90.4% of national income, were used only for debt service during this period. What this shows is that our constantly increasing public debt and the high amount of debt service that accompanies it (interest payments and amortization), has deteriorated so much the country’s fiscal space, so that today, after paying our debts, very little income remains and the government has to borrow for compensation, goods and services and capital expenditures (CAPEX).

“So bad is our current debt situation that our finance minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, in the virtual plenary session of the Development Committee (DC) of the World Bank (WB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) last Friday, He asked for a debt forgiveness for the country. “